Improved mode of preventing the freezing up of gas-pipes



.l. H. MULHALL.

Mode of Preventing Freezing of Gas Pipes.

Patented Aug. 14, 1866;

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v 7 1 f ifW UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

JAMES H. MUL HALL, OF ALBANY, NEW YOBK.

IMPROVED MODE 0F PREVENTING THE FREEZING UP 0F GAS-PIPES.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 57,] 72, dated August 14,1866.

To all whom it may concern:

Be itknown that I, JAMES H. MULHALL, of the city of Albany, State of New York, have invented an Apparatus for Preventing the Freezing Up of Gas'Pipes at the Base of Street-Lamp Posts, or for analogous purposes and I declaie the following specification, with the drawings forming part thereof, to be afull and complete description of my invention.

Figure 1 represents a city lamp-post with its usual gas attachments. Fig. 2 represents my apparatus in perspective, and Fig. 3 the base of a lamp-post with my apparatus attached.

Similar letters denote the same parts of the apparatus.

It is well known that in freezing weather the gas in city lampposts burns dimly and frequently becomes extinguished altogether. This is owing to the construction of the pipes and the mode of connection between the service-pipe from the main and the upright one which conveys the gas through the body of the lamp-post to the lantern. This connection, as shown at a, Fig. 1, is a rectangular elbow, into which the upright and horizontal pipes are screwed, whose bore is of the same diameter or only a trifle larger than the other pipes.

When the temperature of the air is below the freezing-point the moisture, which is always in solution with the gas, becomes con densed on the sides of the upright pipe and drips down into the elbow, where its particles lie until they are frozen and aggregate until they form an obstacle to the movement of the gas sufficient to check materially and frequen tly close entirely the pipe and prevent its issue. To remedy this is the object of my apparatus.

It consists of a metal reservoir, A, of any suitable form (rectangular is shown in the drawings) to carry out my design. It is intended to hold for service alcohol or other liquid uneongealable at the lowest temperature of the climate. Atits top it is fitted with a screw attachment, B, to the lamp-post pipe 0, and at a short distance from its top, on one of its sides, at D, it is attached to the service-pipe E. It is to be filled with the liquid to the height of D, and from time to time, as it becomes necessary from waste, to be replenished. This is done by unscrewing the burner in the lantern and pouring it down the pipe 0.

The operation of the apparatus and its effect is that as the moisture becomes condensed it drips into the alcohol and becomes incorporated with it, and as the dripping swells the mass of fluid its surplus passes ofi into pipe E. This surplus, from its prcponderating porportion of alcohol, cannot be frozen, but passes off to the main pipe leavingthe passage of the gas unobstructed. The alcohol being renewed at proper intervals the proportion it holds in the contents of the reservoir will always keep the liquid beyond danger of congealing.

The cost to gas companies of digging down to the bottom of lamp-postsand thawing out or otherwise removing the ice obstruction is a heavy item of expense, very far exceeding the cost of the supply of alcohol necessary to carry out my remedial plans, to say nothing of its value in insuring a certain supply of light to the streets.

What 1 claim as my invention, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

The employment, at the junction of the lamppost gas-pipe and of the service-pipe at the bottom of the post, of a reservoir to hold a1- cohol or other fluid uncongealable at the lowest temperature of the climate, said reservoir to be formed, fitted, and arranged substantially as described.

JAMES H. MULHALL.

Witnesses:

RIcHD. VARIGK DE WITT, A. V. DE Wrrcr. 

